In 1954, roughly 1,954 years after my kids think I was born, Ann Hodges was struck by a meteorite, right in the Talladega.
That is, she was struck in Talladega County, Alabama, as she was taking a nap, making her the first person who was ever injured by a meteorite in all of history. The odds of this happening were so great that it had never happened before in all of recorded history.
Here’s what happened. On November 30, Ann was napping on her living room couch when an 8.5-pound meteorite crashed through the ceiling, smacked a console radio, and struck her on the hip, leaving a huge bruise.
Her first thought was that the gas space heater had exploded, but she saw a rock about the size of a grapefruit lying on the floor. Plus, the heater was still where it had always been, pumping carbon monoxide into the air.
I can’t tell you the number of times my friends and I played street baseball with an 8.5-pound rock, and one of us would hit a towering home run that would smash into parked cars, knock people off their bicycles, or hit someone’s roof. And then some old guy would come running outside, yelling, "Hey, you kids, quit heaving 8.5-pound rocks on my lawn."
Other people in the area said they had seen a fireball in the sky and heard a tremendous explosion that produced a white cloud. Most people assumed it was some sort of airplane accident.
Ann was checked over by a local physician who said that although her hip and hand were swollen, there was no serious damage.
That’s when things started to get weird.
More than 200 members of the media showed up outside Ann’s house, so her physician told her to stay in the hospital for a few days, to get a break from all the stress. The total cost of her stay was 87 cents and a chicken because they didn’t have to deal with insurance companies.
Officers from nearby Maxwell Air Force Base confiscated the meteorite in the name of science or aliens or something, and turned it over to Air Force intelligence authorities, who said, "We hereby seize this meteor because it’s probably a Communist."
They sent the meteor to the Smithsonian to check it out, and the Smithsonian said, "Cool, thanks. We can keep this now?"
When Ann and Eugene (her husband) Hodges said they wanted it back, the Smithsonian looked bewildered and said, "What meteor?"
Actually, the Smithsonian offered Eugene some money for it, but he claimed he’d had offers of $5,500, which could buy you a whole island in those days, so he turned it down.
Instead, Eugene said, "We have enough evidence that this thing fell in our house." And because it was the 1950s, the government was trustworthy, so the meteor was returned to the Hodges. What are the odds of that happening these days?
In the coming weeks, Ann was featured in Life magazine, displaying the bruise on her hip. She even went to New York to appear on the TV quiz show, "I’ve Got a Secret," which, if you’ve seen the photo of her bruise, you realize she’s in danger of sharing said secret.
She also appeared in some early tabloids with stories like, "I’m Having an Alien Meteor’s Baby" and "I Lost 50 Pounds In One Month Thanks To My New Meteor Diet."
It also turns out Ann and Eugene only rented the house, but it was owned by a woman named Birdie Guy, who said that since the meteor crashed through her roof, it belonged to her. After all, she was facing high repair costs, which in 1954 money was probably around 20 bucks, but the Hodges threatened to countersue for Ann’s injuries. My argument would have been that if Birdie was entitled to the meteor, then maybe Ann was hurt as a result of Birdie’s failing to meteor-proof the roof.
Birdie gave up her claim, and they settled the disagreement, with Birdie getting $500 and Ann keeping the meteor.
Eugene believed that they could make a fortune, so he refused to sell to anyone, and he forbade Ann from selling it — yes, forbade, because this was the 1950s — but was $500 in the hole.
But the bad publicity surrounding the lawsuit brought an end to the monetary offers, so Ann used it as a doorstop for a time before selling it to the Alabama Museum of Natural History for $25, where it still remains.
Imagine holding something that was, at one point, worth $5,500 to someone, only to be lucky enough to get 25 bucks for it two years later.
In the end, the only person who made out in this entire story was Julius McKinney, a farmer who lived near the Hodges. A day after Ann was struck, he discovered a second fragment of the meteorite. He sold it to the Smithsonian for enough money to purchase a small farm and a used car, making Eugene look like an idiot. I feel like he didn’t have to try that hard.
Photo credit: Kai NeSmith (Wikimedia Commons, Creative Commons 4.0)
My new humor novel, Mackinac Island Nation, is finished and available from 4 Horsemen Publications. You can get the ebook and print versions here.